willing to go back to work after 1o years of staying home to raise the kids. any suggestions? (consulting, degree)

[rad123]

Hello everyone,

I did my masters in computers back in INDIA. and unfortunately i haven't done any real work in real world.I never went to work. Now i do not understand what to do? how to fill the gap?I have been staying home almost 10 years. I am looking for computer software field. I can say software engineer or software developer.any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

thank you all.

[Charles]

First of all, are there any jobs for which you can commute to, and you are qualified for?
Do you have any friends who have inside knowledge as to what skills are in demand or are hot?
What about old colleagues?
What about having a meeting with a local university professor to ask him what direction your local industry has been going or is going? Does he see and skills in demand on the horizon? Can he or others help you predict what employers will be needing in one, three, and five years?
Can you leverage your knowledge of Indian culture/language combined with your technical skills? I would think there would be a big demand as so many US technical companies interface with companies in India.
Would you have any difficulty getting a security clearance?

Does your spouse work and does he have benefits? Perhaps look at free lance, contract, job shop work as you don't need benefits if he already has them.

[malamute]

I would take some classes to update your knowledge first.

[chet everett]

If you have demonstrable TALENT in the kinds of true Computer Science positions that require a deep level of fundamental knowledge you might have a shot. You would really need to network hard, maybe even do an internship or 'trial period' to prove your worth on a short term project that sometimes comes across recruiters desks.

I think that it would also be worthwhile to try to find some kind of part work / part learning type position as a lecturer / instructional aid at a local community college. The pay would almost certainly be ridiculously low, but you could use it to build your resume and network with both students that, if they too work part time, might be a nice source of information about what local employers are demanding. Further you can meet adult students / career changers that will be excellent for networking. Additionally most community colleges have WONDERFUL connections with local employers for both internships and direct hiring, while the jobs they would be looking to fill from the community college pool would probably not require any degree beyond an associates, the same HR people would be great contacts into the firms' overall IT hiring which very well might include master's level requirements...

The other obvious path for some one in your position is to leverage a CURRENT certificate of high value with your academic credentials. If you were do something like an immersive series of courses (ok 'cram school') for the full series of Oracle certifications and then target an appropriate sized firm or even consulting practice that specializes in Oracle this might be another productive path.

[novsaggi]

Are you comfortable in any programming language in particular ?
My suggestion would be to identify your strong programming language.
Still, C, C++, Java exists and a lot of work exists in them.
If interested, .NET is also easily adapted as its based on OOPS concepts.

Once identifying, take some training class and do some internship.

Also, remember to read the Software Engineering again. That is used in day to day life.

Hope this helps